Yoshi-P: "If you want more engaging content, go play Ultimate"

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Originally Posted by AziraSyuren

I mean, shield healers have always been a lot more fun than pure healers, so this is nothing new. Even in the glory days of healing.

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Curious but what are the glory days of healing?

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Originally Posted by ASkellington

Haven't they already by saying healers should heal, give us all these healing tools, but still failing to deliver damage to use them all?

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Ah but see that would give you the ability to decide whether a run succeeds or not, and as we've seen for the past few expansions the Critically Acclaimed Single Player RPG FFXIV requires as little teamwork as possible. Denise DPSmain needs to be able to clear a fight without that silly healer's contribution giving them any chance of failure in the slightest.

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Originally Posted by ASkellington

Haven't they already by saying healers should heal, give us all these healing tools, but still failing to deliver damage to use them all?

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I was speaking more about the internal dev team potentially facing backlash for going against the higher-ups' design choices, but if you mean backlash from the healer forums, then, yeah, they've been facing backlash for ages. It just doesn't seem to matter to them.

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Originally Posted by Jirah

Curious but what are the glory days of healing?

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the closest thing you might get to "glory days" for a healer is probly somewhere betweene HW and Stormblood, atleast healers still had identity and were somewhat fun and enguaging -- the moment shadowbringers hit we lost almost everything that made us special and fun.

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Originally Posted by AziraSyuren

I mean, shield healers have always been a lot more fun than pure healers, so this is nothing new. Even in the glory days of healing.

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Not true. Nocturnal Astrologian was not fun at all, specially comparing it to Diurnal AST in 3.0 and 4.0.

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Originally Posted by Caduagm

Not true. Nocturnal Astrologian was not fun at all, specially comparing it to Diurnal AST in 3.0 and 4.0.

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Yeah but SCH was the most fun healer in HW and even throughout most of StB once they gave back the AoE they removed for some god forsaken reason.

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Originally Posted by Jirah

Curious but what are the glory days of healing?

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Truth be told, we never had them. Healing in this game has always been shit and anyone who tries to tell you otherwise is trying to sell you something. The only time it was "better" was in Stormblood. Accuracy and Cleric Stance together made healing anything except the most casual of content even more unrewarding than it is now because trying to optimize still resulted in you missing like half of your spells.

It was ass.

I miss cleric stance. It's kinda nuts how it's just one button, but knowing when to use it made all the difference.

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Originally Posted by AziraSyuren

Yeah but SCH was the most fun healer in HW and even throughout most of StB once they gave back the AoE they removed for some god forsaken reason.



Truth be told, we never had them. Healing in this game has always been shit and anyone who tries to tell you otherwise is trying to sell you something. The only time it was "better" was in Stormblood. Accuracy and Cleric Stance together made healing anything except the most casual of content even more unrewarding than it is now because trying to optimize still resulted in you missing like half of your spells.

It was ass.

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Eh, ARR was a decent time to heal TBH. Pre Gordias there wasn't nearly as deep an emphasis on healer's squeezing everything into DPS GCDs yet whilst the healing requirements were much tighter because we didn't have the wealth of oGCD instant casts that we do now whilst debuffs like Infirmity often made sure even Lustrate was off the menu for anyone other than the tank.

Sure Cleric Stance was a nuisance to deal with but actually healing and keeping tanks alive through Coil progression was a completely different animal to what we have now and in my eyes at least, it was far more rewarding.

Progression T5 and dealing with Death Sentence was a great example. In pre coil gear you'd need a Virus chain, Stoneskin, Adlo, a lustrate and a timed Cure II to land between the Death Sentence hit and the infirmity debuff landing which was a window of about half a second or so from memory. And you had to land that whilst Twintania was spamming auto attacks and a 10 second plummet the whole time. With proper organisation you could afford one of these to miss safely. If you missed two you were risking a tank death to the auto attack that immediate followed later in the fight as the damage ramped up.

T13 was another good example of this with heals needing to be landed between the flare breathes and stomp to keep tanks up safely.

Basically, healing was better because you actually had to pay attention to it, some situations forced you to concentrate on and time your heals to land at an exact time and the fact that we weren't so laser focused on converting every last second of the fight into another glare cast. We could actually do that without feeling bad about it.

Now it feels like even Regen is barely worth the GCD in Savage anymore. In P4S the tank busters hardly register with the majority being flat out ignorable because of invulns/tank switches and a general lack of healing needed for them.

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Originally Posted by Hazama999

I miss cleric stance. It's kinda nuts how it's just one button, but knowing when to use it made all the difference.

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It wasn't Cleric Stance that created that choice though, it was the fact that healing actually required you use your GCD back then because OGCD healing was extremely limited. There was no reason to DPS without Cleric Stance, so much like protect, it may as well not exist if it's always going to exist. It just served as a punishment for anyone who messed up on it. Whether or not you have a button to press before and after switching from DPS to healing or vice versa doesn't actually change the interaction you're making, nor would it alter the experience we have now by itself.

Actually, it would be kind of annoying with how OGCD focused healing has become. Either it doesn't affect OGCD healing and you basically just leave it on the for entire fight, or it does affect OGCD healing, and you get this really ugly window on your GCD anytime you try to weave healing as your damage spells do next to nothing during that time, but you still have no need for the overhealing that would come with using your GCD heals for weaving during that time.

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Originally Posted by Hazama999

I miss cleric stance. It's kinda nuts how it's just one button, but knowing when to use it made all the difference.

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I do too so very much. But as was just said above, I feel like it'd have a hard time finding its place with all the current oGCD healing kit. It was good when GCD healing was the "only alternative".

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Originally Posted by Hazama999

I miss cleric stance. It's kinda nuts how it's just one button, but knowing when to use it made all the difference.

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This feels like conflation. Cleric Stance itself made... zero difference. You just lost access to either the one-third or other two-thirds of your kit depending on whether you were locked in for 5 seconds or had yet to lock in for 5 seconds.

The difference was simply that you even had (to) GCD-heal(s worth casting).

So from my understanding, OGCD heals along with cleric stance which improved your offensive prowess by trading off healing potency, being removed didn’t ruin healing but watered it down

Figures, now it’s very easy to heal without concerns of Mana or castbars. Exactly what they want. So the Lillie system was all hype as it fueled this theme

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

This feels like conflation. Cleric Stance itself made... zero difference. You just lost access to either the one-third or other two-thirds of your kit depending on whether you were locked in for 5 seconds or had yet to lock in for 5 seconds.

The difference was simply that you even had (to) GCD-heal(s worth casting).

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thats a bit reductive. with cleric stance the timing of your heals start mattering a lot more. if im exiting cleric stance, i want to do it at the right time and put out as much healing as i can so that i can spend as little time in CS as possible. compare that to just, using heals whenever. oh i used celestial opposition a gcd late, big deal.


moreover i think people arent remembering how CS worked back then. while cleric stance itself had a 5s cooldown, disabling it didnt have a cooldown, so you could be in CS, disable it without weaving anything, use an ogcd heal, and then immediately going back into CS.

I checked some of my old recordings from ARR. I was healing as a White Mage. Literally the only off-GCD heal I had was Benediction. There were a few other off-GCD mitigation type spells, but Bene was the only healing one.

My dudes all I said is I miss Cleric Stance. Yes, you could say it worked best with the way healing used to be back them, but dayum just leave it at that?

If we're talking about what we miss, I miss being new and getting enjoyment out of healers

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Originally Posted by Hazama999

My dudes all I said is I miss Cleric Stance. Yes, you could say it worked best with the way healing used to be back them, but dayum just leave it at that?

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You shoulda said this on Hot Take topic instead lol.
I miss it too.

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Originally Posted by Hazama999

My dudes all I said is I miss Cleric Stance. Yes, you could say it worked best with the way healing used to be back them, but dayum just leave it at that?

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lol your comment was destined for people to react that way. It was a controversial aspect of healers and I remember an intense amount of random healers that wouldn’t even bother with cleric stance and just stayed one way or the other. I hated it myself but on the bright side, your comment has likes. So not everyone disagrees and you can rejoice on that at least.

I will say I’m torn on how our heals use to function. On one hand, with more gcd heals, every button was useful for something. On the other hand, before they took away our DPS and utility, ogcd heals just worked in regards of us being able to heal whenever caught off guard of peoples’ hp dropping out of the blue. Both were pretty fun styles of healing.

As for my copium of the day, I really hope pvp or any suggestions help fuel the AST rework in the right direction… still concerned about that..

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Originally Posted by AngeliouxRein

As for my copium of the day, I really hope pvp or any suggestions help fuel the AST rework in the right direction… still concerned about that..

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On one hand, I think the concern is very valid, because they could decide to trim the card system even further (their main concern was how busy AST was) and lobotomize the job so that everything is basically automatic and doesn't require any thought on how to properly use the kit.
On the other hand, this could be another empty threatpromise, and all they'll do is increase the healing potency of Aspected Helios or something and promise to look into further adjustments next expansion.

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Originally Posted by QooEr

thats a bit reductive. with cleric stance the timing of your heals start mattering a lot more. if im exiting cleric stance, i want to do it at the right time and put out as much healing as i can so that i can spend as little time in CS as possible. compare that to just, using heals whenever. oh i used celestial opposition a gcd late, big deal.

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Cleric Stance was a matter of committing to damage... for literally just two GCDs. No more, no less. It extended the current 1-GCD commitment of any given action... by a single GCD.

You also wanted to maximize time in Cleric Stance because (A) there was more damage to be done than healing and (B) the CS lockout began on CS activation, not upon leaving it. You could instantly refresh Cleric Stance, so you never needed to commit to healing for any particular number of GCDs. You just couldn't instantly leave it. (HW Wanderer's Minuet and Gauss Barrel, btw, worked the same way, to their notable detriment.)

Edit: Confusion due to typo (opposite preposition) in quote.

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moreover i think people arent remembering how CS worked back then. while cleric stance itself had a 5s cooldown, disabling it didnt have a cooldown, so you could be in CS, disable it without weaving anything, use an ogcd heal, and then immediately going back into CS.

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Yes, turning it off, like any other toggle-off, did not trigger a further cooldown, but you were locked into it until the cooldown was up. Like so many other toggled buffs, it could not be toggled off until its cooldown had elapsed.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Cleric Stance was a matter of committing to damage... for literally just two GCDs. No more, no less. It extended the current 1-GCD commitment of any given action... by a single GCD.

You also wanted to maximize time in Cleric Stance because (A) there was more damage to be done than healing and (B) the CS lockout began on CS activation, not upon leaving it. You could instantly refresh Cleric Stance, so you never needed to commit to healing for any particular number of GCDs. You just couldn't instantly leave it. (HW Wanderer's Minuet and Gauss Barrel, btw, worked the same way, to their notable detriment.)

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meant to say out, not in. as little time out of CS. there, i fixed the typo

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Originally Posted by QooEr

thats a bit reductive. with cleric stance the timing of your heals start mattering a lot more. if im exiting cleric stance, i want to do it at the right time and put out as much healing as i can so that i can spend as little time in CS as possible. compare that to just, using heals whenever. oh i used celestial opposition a gcd late, big deal.


moreover i think people arent remembering how CS worked back then. while cleric stance itself had a 5s cooldown, disabling it didnt have a cooldown, so you could be in CS, disable it without weaving anything, use an ogcd heal, and then immediately going back into CS.

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The sentence I bolded doesn't make sense to me. The longer you spent outside of CS, the less damage you did, yes... but that's not exclusive to CS. Every GCD heal you perform (excluding the lilies) is DPS lost anyway because you're not attacking when you're using GCD heals. The logic of wanting to maximize the power of your GCD healing when its needed does still exist even if something we almost never have to engage with. And the reason isn't because we don't have CS anymore, it's because we're heavily OGCD focused.

I stand by what I said previously which is that CS is superfluous. What people liked was not the button you pressed before and after using a GCD heal; it was the fact that you had to GCD in the first place, and often no less. If we trimmed down OGCD healing and replaced it with GCD healing, that interaction would return without needing a clunky punishment system.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

The sentence I bolded doesn't make sense to me. The longer you spent outside of CS, the less damage you did, yes... but that's not exclusive to CS. Every GCD heal you perform (excluding the lilies) is DPS lost anyway because you're not attacking when you're using GCD heals. The logic of wanting to maximize the power of your GCD healing when its needed does still exist even if something we almost never have to engage with. And the reason isn't because we don't have CS anymore, it's because we're heavily OGCD focused.

I stand by what I said previously which is that CS is superfluous. What people liked was not the button you pressed before and after using a GCD heal; it was the fact that you had to GCD in the first place, and often no less. If we trimmed down OGCD healing and replaced it with GCD healing, that interaction would return without needing a clunky punishment system.

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i understand what youre saying, im just pointing out that with cleric stance the timing itself matters more, because youre more pressured to heal everything in as little time as possible. this includes ogcds. a good example of what i mean was the preys in a12s at the beginning. healing both of those preys in the span of a single gcd using well timed essential dignity and synastry felt very satisfying. without cleric stance, there would be no pressure to try to heal all of that in such a short time frame, and i would probably just be like yeah essential dignity whenever who cares.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Yes, turning it off, like any other toggle-off, did not trigger a further cooldown, but you were locked into it until the cooldown was up. Like so many other toggled buffs, it could not be toggled off until its cooldown had elapsed.

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im aware, which is part of why i also think it encouraged more precise timings on heals. im not saying cleric stance was the best thing ever, i just personally enjoyed the implications it had.

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Originally Posted by QooEr

im aware, which is part of why i also think it encouraged more precise timings on heals. im not saying cleric stance was the best thing ever, i just personally enjoyed the implications it had.

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Admittedly, I really miss that whenever I saw my co-healer go back into CS, I knew 100% that I was expected to grab the rest of the heals, no communication required. And if I saw Bio, Miasma, and Bio II falling off all in order while I'd only lose a tick of Aero at this point for continuing heal, I could pretty well assume my filler damage was going to take the hit, not the SCH's. It added some fun little interactions between co-healers.

(Of course, most of that could still be had through simply be returned by trimming oGCD healing somewhat and increasing ally-trackable (soft) CD-based GCDs, be they DoTs or otherwise, and slightly amping relative damage intensity towards at levels seen in, say, the Caduceus fight -- which in turn could as easily come from removing the Tank Mastery passive and reducing only the strongest TBs in compensation.)

But since it was literally just one extra GCD of commitment (beyond just... beginning to cast a given heal or attack), I can't say I ever thought its implications --especially for oneself-- were worth its button. I'd say, for instance, that early Rescue had far more implication even for casual dungeon-running, let alone KB prevention in raids, than Cleric Stance ever did. At the personal level of implications, I was sad to lose CS only for as long as it took to imagine (perhaps too optimistically) what could then be added in its place.

I'd offer one further condition to what Taurus mentioned above, though: the DoTs. Because you had multiple and more frequent DoTs, you had multiple and more frequent, essentially, soft CDs by which more powerful ppgcd attacks were available. Those in turn offered shifting relative costs to not only a given GCD of healing, but a given GCD of healing at a particular time.

Mid-night reminder that engagement for healers is still lacking, even amidst the fits being pitched.
Unfortunately, Ultimate did not change that, either, so..........................

I've been helping out in P4S as double Whitemage for a couple of evenings, that's been entertaining at least :(

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Yes, turning it off, like any other toggle-off, did not trigger a further cooldown, but you were locked into it until the cooldown was up. Like so many other toggled buffs, it could not be toggled off until its cooldown had elapsed.

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I understand well played SCH's were pretty busted but I mained SCH in ARR and I always thought that Cleric Stance REALLY played well into the Scholar Fantasy of knowing the battle before hand. Knowing what times would be good to use it and what times would be good to have it turned off.

Lustrate being a percentage of max hp based heal instead of a potency based heal (same with stoneskin) really helped in that aspect because both of them weren't affected by Cleric Stance.

To me, that was good design. Here is this ability that lowers your healing done, here are some tools to mitigate it.

This is a topic it can't be that far from the first page.
SE forgets. We don't.

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Originally Posted by Deceptus

I understand well played SCH's were pretty busted but I mained SCH in ARR and I always thought that Cleric Stance REALLY played well into the Scholar Fantasy of knowing the battle before hand. Knowing what times would be good to use it and what times would be good to have it turned off.

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And if it actually changed the affected skills such that it wasn't just effectively choosing which half of one's buttons to grey out, I'd agree. If I were to try to revamp healers as a role such that each job has more nuance, engagement, and identity, a Light/Dark stance swap would probably be included for Scholar.

But the thing is, outside of early prog, the SCH would scarcely ever GCD heal except during downtime, and no Aetherflow curative/defensive tools were affected by Cleric Stance (nor even Infirmity), so it was only ever toggled off briefly for downtime, the likes of HW Darkside, except even more rarely. It did very, very little.

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Originally Posted by Aarchie

This is a topic it can't be that far from the first page.
SE forgets. We don't.

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SE doesn't forget, they cover up. There's a big difference.

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Originally Posted by MintnHoney

SE doesn't forget, they cover up. There's a big difference.

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They want Energy Drain back? Fine. They won't have anything to say once SCH 2.0 releases without Energy Drain though... It'll also save us actually having to make a new healer... One way or another the house always wins.

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Originally Posted by Nethereal

They want Energy Drain back? Fine. They won't have anything to say once SCH 2.0 releases without Energy Drain though... It'll also save us actually having to make a new healer... One way or another the house always wins.

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True, but it would be nice if we could all win together, for once.

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Originally Posted by Nethereal

They want Energy Drain back? Fine. They won't have anything to say once SCH 2.0 releases without Energy Drain though... It'll also save us actually having to make a new healer... One way or another the house always wins.

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If I was betting, Energy Drain is on it's way out come next expansion.

Short of a full Aetherflow removal or overhaul to gauge. Like mentioned well back, obviously it struck a nerve with YoshiP before Eden's Promise when he said he preferred Aetherflow being used for healing when they nerfed it and added potency on bio/broil. But of course weaving things, and then EW 1.5s cast time happened. Plus how Sage is designed with it's gauge being heal only, and toxicon's boxed-in skill. Scholar 2.0 is a good idea, now they don't have to make another healer.

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Originally Posted by technole

If I was betting, Energy Drain is on it's way out come next expansion.

Short of a full Aetherflow removal or overhaul to gauge. Like mentioned well back, obviously it struck a nerve with YoshiP before Eden's Promise when he said he preferred Aetherflow being used for healing when they nerfed it and added potency on bio/broil. But of course weaving things, and then EW 1.5s cast time happened. Plus how Sage is designed with it's gauge being heal only, and toxicon's boxed-in skill. Scholar 2.0 is a good idea, now they don't have to make another healer.

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I would agree, but I honestly expected it to be on the way out this expac, and lo and behold they reduced the CD on Energy Drain and made it a bigger DPS gain than it was in ShB, and also kept in Ruin II, which is incredibly confusing and sends extremely mixed messages given their previous statements on Energy Drain and the nerf it received mid ShB.

I think they don't really understand why Energy Drain was necessary for SCH in ShB and they're afraid to touch it at all anymore after the backlash from SCH changes in ShB, but were it to be removed I'm fairly certain SCH would receive no DPS skills in exchange for losing it.

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Originally Posted by technole

Obviously it struck a nerve with YoshiP before Eden's Promise when he said he preferred Aetherflow being used for healing when they nerfed it and added potency on bio/broil.

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YoshiP: Healers should heal.

Also YoshiP: Forces players to choose between damage or healing, players pick damage every time because they play the game the way it was designed to be played.

*surprised pikachu face*

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Originally Posted by Nizzi

I think they don't really understand why Energy Drain was necessary for SCH in ShB and they're afraid to touch it at all anymore after the backlash from SCH changes in ShB, but were it to be removed I'm fairly certain SCH would receive no DPS skills in exchange for losing it.

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Definitely not. That's what they tried initially, so lazy.

Small indie dev company btw.

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Originally Posted by Nethereal

YoshiP: Healers should heal.

Also YoshiP: Forces players to choose between damage or healing, players pick damage every time because they play the game the way it was designed to be played.

*surprised pikachu face*

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Yoshi P: "We're removing SCH's DPS kit because the SCH would be DPSing away leaving the WHM to heal."
Yoshi P: Removes DoTs which don't take away from healing but leaves in Dissipation which takes away from healing, and then moves the faerie off the Pet GCD so SCH is forced to lose DPS to use its previously free healing unless it uses Ruin II + ED

Really screams confidence in developer decisions when they don't even understand why and how players utilize the tools a job gives them. How were Miasma, Miasma II, Shadowflare and Bane preventing SCH from healing, but the button that kills SCH's fairy for 30 seconds is still in the game?

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Definitely not. That's what they tried initially, so lazy.

Small indie dev company btw.

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They also made Aetherflow only usable in combat despite removing Energy Drain, which eliminated the point of having to wait 60s to get 3 more stacks to dump in your opener... I really don't get it, but we're healers, expecting anything is a bad decision on our parts I guess.

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Originally Posted by Nizzi

How were Miasma, Miasma II, Shadowflare and Bane preventing SCH from healing, but the button that kills SCH's fairy for 30 seconds is still in the game?

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the same logic that makes them want to make healing easier for newbies but keep the noobtraps (cough cure 1) after 4 expansions.

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Originally Posted by Nizzi

Yoshi P: "We're removing SCH's DPS kit because the SCH would be DPSing away leaving the WHM to heal."
Yoshi P: Removes DoTs which don't take away from healing but leaves in Dissipation which takes away from healing, and then moves the faerie off the Pet GCD so SCH is forced to lose DPS to use its previously free healing unless it uses Ruin II + ED

Really screams confidence in developer decisions when they don't even understand why and how players utilize the tools a job gives them. How were Miasma, Miasma II, Shadowflare and Bane preventing SCH from healing, but the button that kills SCH's fairy for 30 seconds is still in the game?



They also made Aetherflow only usable in combat despite removing Energy Drain, which eliminated the point of having to wait 60s to get 3 more stacks to dump in your opener... I really don't get it, but we're healers, expecting anything is a bad decision on our parts I guess.

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They wanted SCH to use AF stacks on healing actions, so thet removed Energy Drain completely, only to give it back after a ton of backlash. ED is the Aethetflow dump, and is absolutely needed to manage AF waste and MP.

Yet, rather than remove the damage the ability does, which makes it a DPS gain and thus actively punishes you for using AF to heal, in EW they removed the MP refund part.

So now, you still get punished for not using an ability they intended as a AF dump.

I really don't understand what they were trying to do.

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Originally Posted by GrimGale

They wanted SCH to use AF stacks on healing actions, so thet removed Energy Drain completely, only to give it back after a ton of backlash. ED is the Aethetflow dump, and is absolutely needed to manage AF waste and MP.

Yet, rather than remove the damage the ability does, which makes it a DPS gain and thus actively punishes you for using AF to heal, in EW they removed the MP refund part.

So now, you still get punished for not using an ability they intended as a AF dump.

I really don't understand what they were trying to do.

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It's a mess, despite Scholar being really good. Like an old flavor that has gotten several band-aids to not upset the status quo.

Since removing MP refund on ED was kind of them reigning in MP management, same with White Mage's thin air. I'm fine with that. Still hopeful for something more major since they'll have no excuse of a new healer job being in the way.

So I mean is this just people wanting to have fewer healing skills and more dps skills so they can do more in leveling roulette and overworld? I can get behind that since right now it feels like they wanted healers to have an entire firehose rotation with a dozen buttons that need to go off to heal someone or mitigate some massive tank buster, then go pew pew on bosses for like near nothing.

They could bring back cleric stance and have hot bars swap when you are in dps stance vs not dps stance. They got rid of stance dancing to make things less complicated, but that was because the system in the game was not built to handle stance dancing due to hot bars and number of abilities. If the hot bars actually swapped when swapping stance, than you could setup a full dps rotation and also setup a full healing rotation without breaking anything. Realistically you'd never be in dps stance when doing party content outside dungeons and normal content.

Also... stances would probably have been the answer that archanist needed... like almost seven years ago...